A Yard Sale Worth Planning

Early in the summer, I posted some Yard Sale tips after being a part of two Yard Sale Events with other Yard Sale vendors. Between the two weekends, I had made $230.00. For all the hauling to other locations, set-up, and tear-down, the return wasn't great, but after God gave Matt and I the same idea to collect things to sell (donated from other humans who heard we were selling and offered things they were ready to get rid of and also picked up from the side of the road), things started piling up. We knew if we continued, even selling $250 worth a week online, we'd have a huge haul left by the end of the summer.

Matt works on a local military base as a contractor, and every September they have an air show. This is fun and patriotic for the community, but for the people who work on the base it means a mandatory week off work as the base prepares for the airshow. This was the perfect (forced) opportunity. We knew a week of no work was coming, and we set our yard sale date accordingly for September 16th.

All summer we told people, "We're saving up for a yard sale, if you have anything you're getting rid of." All summer people handed us things. I was bold. If I saw someone (a stranger) advertising their yard sale in a Facebook Group (specifically people who were moving, and thus ready to unload everything that didn't sell) I would tell them that I'd come and pick up whatever they were ready to get rid of after the sale (while wishing them well on the sale. I'm not heartless). I picked up boxes and boxes from different families this way. It was some of our best stuff. Between donations from friends, donations from strangers, and things we found out for the trash we populated the largest one family yard-sale (which was of course representing lots of different families) you've ever seen. One of my sister-in-laws who worked at a thrift store for years said, "Y'all honestly have more stuff than the average CHKD out here."

Matt's prayer for the weekend was for the Yard Sale to make enough to replace his week of work, which is roughly $700. My hope for the weekend was to make a couple hundred dollars to offset some of Matt's missed work week. I'm thankful for a husband who prays and expects God to answer. We made $692.00 in our one-day Yard Sale, and between that and a side job my husband did during the week, I think we had the best financial week we've ever had. How good is God?

A couple of tips:

• Take killer pictures on your nice camera before hand and post them everywhere that's free.
• Get your best stuff in these pictures. People love to dig through the piles of treasures for a deal, but seeing the pretty pieces together makes them come out. 
• Paint neon signs with black letters "YARD SALE ALL DAY" and arrows. 
• Place them at every major intersection and on a clear path toward your house. This is worth the hour of placement the night before.
• Get things out of boxes where people can see them.
• I had all of my linens in boxes and when we un-boxed them and spread them out on a table (a couple hours in, there was SO MUCH to do!) they sold like hot cakes.

We didn't sell expensive things. The most expensive single item that sold was $25 (we sold a camera couple of days before the yard sale for more, but that's not included in the numbers I gave you). It was a lot of $1 items that piled up, up, up throughout the day.

I'm so thankful for all of the people who donated towards our Yard Sale; the family members who helped with Charlotte, set-up and tear down, and meals the day of; and mostly, the God who knows the desires of our hearts even when we're not brave enough to pray them out loud.

Follow along on Facebook to see our debt-free journey unfold!